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Leader: Ron
Gray
Web
Site: www.chp.ca
Platform: Platform
Candidates: None
listed on web site as of May 1, 2004.
The
Party: The
Christian Heritage Party ("CHP")
takes the position that God - the god mentioned
in the New Testament of the Christian bible
- is supreme in Canada's system of government.
On the CHP web site, the party says it believes:
- "There
is one Creator God, eternally existent in
three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
- The
Holy Bible to be the inspired,
inerrant written Word of God and the
final authority above all man's laws and
government.
- Civil
government to be under the authority
of God.
- The purpose of
civil government is to ensure freedom and justice
for a nation's citizens by upholding law and
order in accordance with Biblical principles.
- Decision-making
processes by civil government must not
in any way contravene these Biblical
ethics." (emphasis added)
The
CHP does not suggest that Canada's government be
comprised of clerics, and it does not suggest a
departure from the practice of electing MPs to
the House of Commons. However, the party's beliefs,
above, make it the CHP's most defining feature
clear: it is theocratic, rather than democratic,
in nature. In other words, it believes that the
government's "authority to govern is ultimately derived
from God" (hence theocracy,
meaning "god power"), rather than being
derived from mankind (which is the essence of democracy,
meaning "people power"). As a result,
the CHP also believes that, above all of the laws
of Canada - above the common law, the statutes,
and the constitution - the Christian Bible alone
sits as the supreme law.
Party
Policies: The
CHP's core beliefs, naturally, find their way
into the following statements, set out in the
CHP's Policies (emphasis added,
below):
- "We
believe that obedience to God and
His commandments should be the foundation of
government." (1.0[1])
- "...economic prosperity is
a blessing of the Lord..." (3.1)
- "...We
believe that the human body is
the property of God..." (6.3[1])
- "Abortion
is the deliberate killing of an innocent human
being, and therefore is a crime against
God" (6.3[2])
- "Justice consists
of judicial procedures based
on the principles of God's revealed Word..." (6.1[1])
- "We
affirm that contempt of the Bible, and any
form of blasphemy against God,
are an offense which Parliament has an
obligation to prohibit and declare
as morally wrong." (6.2[4])
- "We
affirm that the value and dignity of
the individual is derived from the
fact that 'man was created in the image
of God" (6.3[3])
- "We
affirm that heterosexual, monogamous marriage is
God-ordained as the foundation of the family,
and that any other form of union whatsoever
is Biblically prohibited" (note
CHP "belief", above, that, in Canada,
the Bible is the supreme law, superior even
to statutes and the constitution). (6.4[2])
- "The government has
been entrusted by God with the use
of ‘the sword’ for the
protection of the citizens and the punishment
of evil" (6.7.8)
- "...authority to
govern is ultimately derived from God..."(7.0[1])
- "Government exists to
serve God..." (7.0[1])
- "Though
the mandate of church and state are
different, we deny that God and His Word
should be separate from either institution" (7.0[2])
- "...wisdom and justice ultimately have
as their source a reverential fear of
God (1) and respect for His Word." (7.4[1])
We
can infer, from these deep faith-based, theocratic
commitments, that the CHP would be in favour of
criminal punishment for women who have abortions,
and would never permit the recognition of gay marriages.
It is not clear how a CHP government, acting as
the hand of God on earth, would treat those who
would wear a tee-shirt that was contemptuous of
the Christian Bible or blasphemous against the
Christian God (see section 6.2[4] of
the CHP policies). However, the CHP's policy in
favour of government prohibition of such expressions,
if acted upon, would arguably requires a CHP led
Parliament to invoke the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms' notwithstanding clause (section 33) to
override Canadians' freedom of expression. The
CHP's commitment to government being the enforcer
of God's laws also invites inquiry into whether
the CHP would find a "place for the state
in the bedrooms of the nation"1 so
as to punish sexual acts that it might find to
be contrary to what it considers the supreme law
set out in the Bible.
We
would be remiss in not commenting upon the apparent
soft-peddaling of the CHP's deeply religious Policies in
the party's election Platform:
the platform contains no references to the Bible,
and only one reference to God (and, even then,
only to quote the "supremacy of God" preamble
in Canada's constitution). However, CHP is hardly
alone in providing the electorate with a relatively
secularized or toned-down election Platform in
the face of a somewhat more dramatically worded
statement of party Policies. For example, the Green
Party of Ontario published a rather mainstream-sounding Platform
in the provincial election of 2003: in some cases
- notably education - the Platform boasted
of offering choice in education without mentioning
the party's Policy of having a single, government-operated,
system of education. A positive for the CHP: whereas
the Green Party of Ontario took its statement
of Policies off of its web site during the Ontario
election (which, intentionally or unintentionally,
made it difficult to discover that the election
Platform was not telling the whole story about
the party's agenda), the CHP (at least as of May
1, 2004) posts its Policies for all to see, and
to compare with the CHP election Platform.
1. Historical
Note: This phrase was coined by Martin
O'Malley while a writer for the Globe and Mail
newspaper. The line was later made famous
on December 21, 1967, when it was used by then
Minister of Justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau
upon his introduction of an omnibus bill that,
among other things, decriminalized "homosexual
acts" performed in private.
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